Language Barriers Once An Issue Of The Past, Are Simplified And Eradicated With Google Translate

Multiculturalism has become a very large and important part of society and business life today, with a great many people living here and across the world who may speak little to none of the native language of the land.

I was called to a client last Friday, to survey and estimate for a door and lock repair project, where the customer who had filled out the online lead form, obviously didnt understand much English.

I contacted them immediately (as i try to do with all leads) and noticed the difficulty in understanding them and they in understanding me.

By speaking very slowly and enunciating my words, I was able to get my message across and determine some of their needs. I arranged a suitable time (in the following hour) to attend and provide a free onsite survey and estimate, like we offer to all our clients.

Upon arrival, ringing the door bell and waiting, the clients daughter answered the door and invited me in.

She spoke very little English and after a few minutes I managed to get her to tell me that she was Nepalese. She pointed me in the direction of the project request and toward her father and mother.

The difficulty in communicating, to determine their needs was perplexing until I remembered that Google produced a fabulous app, a few years ago called Google Translate.

Having traveled abroad, a number of times in recent years and me not speaking the native language of some of my destinations, I have successfully used the Google Translate app on my cellphone a great number of times. From reading menus to understanding street signs, the Google Translate app has quickly become one of my most prized app's. I remember traveling from Italy, through Switzerland to France, a few years ago and we stopped over in Bern, Switzerland for a few hours while waiting to transfer trains. We decided to look for a bite to eat but very few of the signs had English translations, so understanding where to go and what to do was difficult without the app.

The app includes a microphone feature that enables you to speak in your language and it will automagically translate into the desired language for which you want to speak. Then you can play the translated phrases for your subject to hear and understand. they can then respond in their language, again into your cellphone and the app will translate into English. then I press the play button and a Google created synthetic voice will speak in English.

While abroad another time, we were staying in Madrid, Spain for a few days and wanted to go to the oldest restaurant in the civilized world, Sobrino de Botín and eat from their unique menu. The taxi driver that picked us up at the hotel, did not speak any English at all and I immediately pulled out my phone and spoke our request into the Google Translate app. When the driver heard the synthesized voice, he lit up and smiled and understood perfectly. he responded in Spanish and thanked us for introducing him to such a fabulous tool that would help him to earn substantially more money in future.

......back to the subject of the post here... the customer was able to communicate their needs in their native Nepalese and to understand my responses after translating from English.

We have arranged the project completion for next week and chalk up another satisfied client.


If you run your own show, or even if you dont, you will most likely run into communication issues in your life and sometimes your daily travels. using the Google Translate app will help you to communicate easily with almost anyone and provide top notch customer service for which you will be remembered and referred  because of. I highly suggest you download the app from your OS app store and start capitalizing on income opportunities from customers, whom in the past, you may have had difficulties talking to and with. 

Below find links to the app in Apple App Store and Google Play.


Google Translate For IOS

Google Translate For Android